Autobiography.

From today. I will be publishing parts (but not all) of my autobiography. I shall not be publishing all of it on here, just highlights its called, Having Relations.

All comments wlcome.

I am going to start with chapter two.

Having Relations.
Chapter 2.
(Case Dismissed).

Pamela Green is in her sixties now. She lives in the South of England, in a neat little Bungalow, with fuchsias and geraniums in the garden. She is a member of the W I. In his book Doing Rude Things, David McGillivray, called her “…the Mother of the British Porn Industry.” So what has this got to do with me? I was thirteen when I first discovered Ms Green’s work. In a damp, dismal, dust-laden, derelict shop, I found a box containing sets of photographs of Ms Green and labelled ‘Harrison Marks’s Studio, London’. Someone had written on the box, in pencil, ‘6d each, 2/6 a set’. The photos were in bundles of six and wrapped in black sugar paper. They were the first nudes I had ever seen of a Caucasian woman.

A couple of years passed, and I had a gang. It formed during the summer holidays. The bottom of our street was finished and complete, and the top was a building site. The builders built twenty houses and went bankrupt, leaving a timber hut and a yard with bricks and timber. Our gang comprised: Christine, Fiona, Richard, Steve and Me. Fiona was the eldest, she had her sixteenth birthday in the summer holidays of 1969. Fiona was a Roman Catholic – so didn’t go to our school – and this year she would be a prefect. The holidays ended and the nights grew dark, we had nowhere to hang out. It was then that Fiona revealed that her father had a key to the hut. The girls supplied a battery radio, some candles and a pile of girl’s magazines, Jackie and Fab 208.

Richard picked up a Jackie and started to read it, opening it at Cathy and Claire’s Problem Page and delighting in reading the problems aloud.

The girls were not amused. ‘This is my Dad’s hut,’ Fiona told him, “you are a guest.’

‘Rich thinks tam-pon is the capital of Korea,’ Steve quipped.

Christine showed me a centre page photo of Cliff Richard with his eyes and teeth artificially whitened, ‘He’s a dish,’ she said and kissed the picture.

‘You can put that up on the wall,’ Fiona told her.

One Thursday, I think it was December. For some reason I missed going to Scouts. It was snowing and I found myself wandering about on the land behind the yard, when I was hailed by a familiar voice: it was Fiona. She held up the key, on its string, which hung around her neck on a coloured shoelace. I went over and joined her at the fence. She pushed up the wire netting and we clambered through. It was already dark, so once inside she lit some candles. We turned on the radio and listened to The Barry Aldis Show and Fiona opened the cupboard.

‘I wasn’t going to show the others,’ she began, ‘but you can see them’, and she took out two magazines. One was called Solo and the other Kamera. They were men’s magazines from the late fifties. Many years later they turned up in a Media Studies Course, not an O U one, in a paper written by David McGillivray, all the photographs were by George Harrison Marks (that name again) and the copy of Solo was one of the much prized (by collectors of such pulchritude) Portrait of a Model Series. This one featuring Jackie Salt who I already knew from her role as “Guardian” in Dr Who. I saw the actual copy of Solo on e-bay recently. I didn’t buy it. The other magazine featured Pamela Green.

I flicked through Solo, Jackie Salt was the younger of the two models, pert and petite, more appealing to eyes of my tender years. Fiona was sitting next to me now, grinning. Sitting there in her Catholic school uniform, which, because she was already sixteen and a prefect, had gold braid on the blazer.

‘You can have them,’ she told me, so the two magazines spent the next ten years in a suitcase under my bed, ‘you wont learn much from them,’ she grinned. Then she smiled, ‘You can call me Fi,’ she told me; she put her feet up on a box, which raised her skirt, revealing her white cotton pants. I was Laurie Lee, she was my Jo, and the hut was our apple cart.

Marks’ photographs were not indecent or obscene, this was tried in court and the case was dismissed. The models were statuesque as it was illegal to show pubic hair or genitals and Marks’s published pictures were always airbrushed to ensure this.


It was three years later that I joined a camera club, and started photographing trains. With my eyesight any good photos taken by me are highly treasured. I bought a second-hand Russian Camera, completely manual. I think that a photo you have set up yourself beats something where everything is done for you. One evening in 1973, a man came to the Camera Club. He gave a talk; his name was Doug Webb. He was a World War Two flying ace and held the DFC. After the war he opened a ‘glamour’ studio, where he photographed Pamela Green. The talk he gave was to stand me in good stead years later, when I took a Media Studies Course. He told us about Indecency and Obscenity and how to avoid them when photographing nudes. Not that that would bother me, as I didn’t know anyone who would pose nude. But that was to change: suddenly.

A week passed, and I turned up at the Club with my aluminium box containing my Zenith Camera and three lenses. The other members were acting like idiots, huddled around a pretty auburn haired woman who could legally have been anything from sixteen to twenty-two. Her name, she said, was Karen. I knew her, not to speak to, but by sight. On the rare occasion that I used the bus, usually the 10.35 pm service, she was on it, and she always got off in the middle of nowhere near a farm. She tried several poses in several different outfits: it was the broidery anglais blouse with the top button open that caused the most interest with camera motors whirring and flashguns blazing.

‘Do you do extras?’ Someone asked.

‘Like what?’ She replied.

‘Without the blouse,’ the same voice answered.

Malcolm the secretary pushed forward, ‘the lads tuck fivers into your shirt, when you think there’s enough you take it off, that’s what most of the girls do,’ he said.

She thought for a moment, smiled and said, ‘O K.’

A Fortnight later. I was standing on platform five of Crewe station, with my Zenith on its tripod, pointing down the line towards Gresty Lane. When a face peered back at me through the lens. It was Karen.

‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I thought it was you, how did the pictures turn out?’

-‘Oh, hi: mine turned out alright I haven’t seen any of the others.’

‘Have you got them with you? She asked.

‘I don’t carry prints around with me,’ I said, adding, ‘would you like a set?’

-‘Please.’

‘How do I get them to you?’ I enquired.

‘Do you know The Bear in Foregate Street?’ She asked.

I nodded.

‘I’ll be there about seven, Thursday night,’ she said, ‘in the lounge.’

Monday. Many of the shots were over exposed (too light) due to the plethora of flashguns in the club studio. So, out of fifty pictures, I printed eighteen and dried them off in my glazer. I closed the box of photo paper and switched on the room light and examined the prints that were already dry and glazed. I was pleased with them and hoped Karen would be too. The shots were mostly semi-clothed, with some topless. Karen’s figure was not unlike Jackie Salt: slim, willowy, pert and petite. I poured the used chemicals into a plastic bucket, diluted them with the rest of the water and carried them to the toilet for disposal. I had bought a scrapbook from Woolworth’s and a packet of photo corners: I intended to present Karen with an album.

Thursday evening. I walked from Stafford College to The Bear and ordered a pint. The album safely stored between two large electronics books to prevent bending the precious prints. I was still at the bar when Karen entered, I saw her look around, spot me, smile and come over: taking my arm to announce her arrival.

I carried the drinks over to the far corner and we sat down.

‘Did you bring them?’ She asked.

I patted my Inter City shoulder bag, ‘They’re in here,’ I said.

She sipped her Guinness, ‘Let’s see them then,’ she said.

‘In here?’ I asked.

-‘Why not, my parents are naturists, it takes a lot to embarrass me.’

I took out the scrapbook and handed it to her, she examined it.

‘Nice touch,’ she observed, opening the book at the first page, ‘Oh,’ she noted, ‘large prints.’

‘But of course, I thought I’d make a job of it,’ I said.

‘Black and White, I like it, like Harrison Marks,’ she turned the page, ‘these are good,’ she said.

‘Are your parents really naturists?’ I asked.

‘U-um, they swim every week at Crewe, my Mum and my Step Dad, I’ve had to give it up since I moved here,’ she explained.

‘I see,’ I summoned up courage, ‘there’s an On the Buses Film at the Odeon, would you like to go?’ I asked.

We retired to the Eastern House. In the dimly lit, flock wallpapered restaurant: she took off her jacket. She was wearing a white cotton top underneath. Perhaps there was a draught in the restaurant, without realising I was staring. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The Chinese are supposedly inscrutable, but this waiter was grinning as he gave us the menus.

‘I’ll have Chicken Chow Mien,’ she announced.

‘I think I’ll have the same,’ I said.

‘So?’ She asked, ‘Which On The Buses film is on at the Odeon?’

‘Not sure, it’s on ‘’til Saturday.’ I said.

‘Saturday’s fine with me,’ she told me.

Saturday night at the Odeon went well. I left her at the bus stop by Chetwynd Grammar School. As we kissed goodnight, she told me she was nineteen and about her ex: that his name was Chet and he collected cameras. Then she said, ‘Meet me at my place, Wednesday night about seven.’ I knew her place roughly. I’d seen her get off the late night bus near there on a few occasions. I walked back to the station to retrieve my Honda. The stables belonged to Sam, who had sold a house in London (at huge profit) to move to the country, and quite frankly, what Sam knew about farming could be written on the back of a stamp. I foolishly told him how, at the age of fourteen, I had delivered twin lambs. It had been on my friend’s farm supervised by the farmer and the shepherd. Sam had bought his farm to indulge his wife and two teenage daughters, who were all horse-mad.

Karen and I were sitting in the lounge area of her caravan, when Sam knocked on the door.

-‘Is Mike here?’ He asked urgently.

-‘I’m here, Sam, what is it?’

‘Could you take a look at Morning Star? Mr Traynor had a look when he was here, he said it would be the next few days.’ Sam said, as Karen dashed past us urgently.

Sam and I entered the stable to find Sam’s younger daughter and Karen, patting and petting the huge mare’s head. Star was a large mare, which was lucky, because I knew that Sam kept a Percheron aptly called ‘Goliath’ for ploughing contests. Goliath was un-gelded and I suspected that they had been in the paddock together.

‘Have you rung the vet?’ I asked.

‘He’s gone to Norton Bridge, a cow, I believe, I thought you could…’ Sam’s words tailed off.

‘Look Sam: a ewe is one thing, this is a valuable animal,’ I said.

‘It can’t be that different,’ Sam told me.

I said, ‘looks like it’s time.’

Karen smiled at Sam’s pyjama clad offspring.

‘What happens now?’ Sam asked.

‘Well the head’s forward, I’ll bring the front legs through the
Cervix and hey presto.’ I said, ‘we’ll need a rope.’

‘I’ve got one on the Range Rover, I’ll get it.’ He said, returning with the filthiest towrope I have ever seen.

‘Can’t use that,’ I told him.

‘Certainly can’t,’ said a male voice in the doorway, it was Mr Traynor, ‘I’ve got a clean one on the Land Rover: how’s it presented?’

‘Damn,’ I said, ‘The foal’s thrown its head back.’

‘Oh we’ll sort that,’ the vet said and went to fetch his rope.

Mr Traynor made a loop in the rope with a slipknot, and passed it to me. In a second I had the slipknot round my fingers, and a few minutes later it was round the foal’s front legs.

‘The head’s still back, ‘ I told the assembled audience.

Sam stood transfixed in a corner of the stable. Karen ripped off her woolly jumper revealing a tee shirt: and took up position behind the vet. Together they took the rope. I forced the huge head downwards. The little girl moved across the stable and grabbed the end of the rope.

‘Head’s down, feet forward, pull.’ I said with my right hand maintaining pressure on the huge foal’s forehead. I glanced momentarily across at Sam: he was shivering. I was the one with no shirt and he was shivering. The girls and the vet pulled the rope taut. As soon as my hand was free, I helped with the pull. The foal’s head and front feet entered the world. I plunged a sore hand into the bucket. It was a huge Colt.

‘No need to ask who the father is,’ the vet said.

Karen’s modelling career was not going quite as planned. Taking in to account the clothes, shoes and make-up she had to buy, by my reckoning she was already over one hundred and fifty pounds out of pocket. She was due to model at the camera club on Thursday, but now I was having second thoughts. That was when she sprung a surprise on me.

‘I’ve been offered the chance of some catalogue work,’ she said.

I forced a smile, ‘Oh, good,’ I said.

‘I have to go to Manchester on Saturday,’ she told me.

-‘Oh.’

‘I’ll be back on the train that gets into Stafford station at five-twenty five, we can meet up there,’ she said, ‘I need a shower, you’d better join me, you can’t go home like that.’

It was cramped in the caravan shower, but we were both young, slim, she stepped out of the cubicle, only to return with something in her hand.

‘This catalogue work on Saturday,’ she began, ‘its undies. Men always make a better job: could you?’ She handed me her razor. ‘They say that Arabs carry their wives’ hair around with them,’ she grinned, ‘romantic, isn’t it? Did you bring your camera?’

I had.

‘What do you think?’ She asked, striking a pose.

‘Pamela Green,’ I remarked.

Karen smirked, ‘Pamela Green, umm, that’ll do,’ she grinned.

It might seem that I was obsessed with Karen and taking photographs. But I had other interests. It was a combination of a love of Northern Soul Music, Hi-fidelity audio and an interest in electronics. Stafford had a second-hand shop in the early seventies: which rejoiced in the name of A.R. Pendleton’s ‘Resales’. Resales had a rack of second-hand 45 r p m single records: including ex-juke box, American imports and general pop. This rack was a gold mine for finding Northern Soul singles, each one had a hole drilled in the label and an oversize American centre: Pendleton sold them at fifteen pence each or four for fifty pence. Each one came with a free adaptor so that the singles could be played on a British record deck. Pendleton’s was also an Aladdin’s Cave of cameras and hi-fi, he only ever bought in lightly used items so it was all good quality.

FBSR Mike Brotherton 2009.

Today's chapter is long: so it's in two parts.

Having Relations. Chapter 2.
(Lost Love and Redundancy).

Where did I go to hear the soulful sounds that I loved? Well, a local bus company, H Brown and Sons ran coaches to the Casino at Wigan, coaches that picked up in Newport, but not Stafford, they weren’t much use to me as I wanted to take Karen with me, so we would meet on Stafford station and catch the 18.30 train to Stoke-on-Trent. Making our way by red and cream PMT bus to Hose Street in Tunstall to a venue resplendent in the name of The Golden Torch, but to those ‘in the know’ simply as ‘The Torch’. The Torch had been a chapel and then a cinema, but had closed and been bought by a businessman who turned it into a ballroom although one end of the building still had three projection holes in the wall: half way up the stairs that led to the balcony. In the early days, rumour had it: The Torch had been the venue for fights between Teddy Boys and Beatniks. But by early 1973 the venue had become a collecting place for a sub group of Mods: those who liked all-night soul. I had a membership card so admittance was sixty pence, but Karen was always ‘signed in’ as a guest and I had to pay eighty-five pence. Even so it was a bargain to dance or just listen for one pound forty-five pence. These were the final days of The Torch, but even so some chart-topping Soul groups appeared in late ’72 and the early months of ’73. The exterior of the venue was painted blue and purple and had a mosaic over the door of a scene from Ben Hur. In those last days there was always a strong presence from Stoke Constabulary watching for drug dealing. I was never tempted, in fact I had two vices in those days, each weekend I would buy twenty Consulate cigarettes, which Karen and I would smoke by Sunday. My other vice was Karen herself, placed on a pedestal: a freckled, Titian Goddess. There was one person that I envied at The Torch: he was about my age, worked on the bar, but he had another more enviable task, at midnight he would lead the artistes across the dance floor to the stage; Sometimes he would do a stint on the decks as a D J or a ‘spinner’ as they were called. I think his name was Phil.

The upper balcony had tables and chairs, but never enough as the club was almost always over-populated with Mods coming from: Cheshire, Derbyshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. This of course meant that your girl had to sit on your lap and the balcony was the scene of much ‘heavy petting’. For those who wanted to go further (and some did) there was a room next to the stage, which was supposed to be locked, both the management and police turned a blind eye to this. Karen would never go to the room at the side of the stage. Sunday morning would find us sitting on Stoke station: a freezing, cold, wind tunnel of a place at nine o’clock on a dismal February morning. She would open my jacket and put her arms around me inside, it kept us both warm. By ten we would be back at Karen’s caravan and I would pick up my Honda and ride the seven miles home to Newport. My father would never believe that I had spent the whole night at a dance hall: he argued that because I took a box of singles with me, I’d spent the night at the caravan. But the ‘spinners’ at the Torch often played member’s discs. One Sunday morning: Dad stood across the living room door and prevented me getting upstairs to my bed. I picked him up gently and moved him out of the way. At half past one he brought me my Sunday lunch: in bed. It was all forgotten, but it made one change, before that I had been closest to my Mum, from then on: Dad and I were best mates.

Sunday afternoon, after tea, I would change into my Levi jeans and Ben Sherman shirt: it was antique gold with a blue chalk stripe. Then I’d ride the Honda to Karen’s place. Sometimes I’d spend the early evening helping her to muck out. Waiting for Sam to take his family to Chapel so we could retire to the caravan, or the hayloft: a sandstone building at the end of row of modern stables built from concrete blocks. I purchased, on Karen’s advice, a packet of five ribbed Durex Stimula condoms and, sad to say, when all five were gone: so was she. We made love only five times in the month we were together: exactly five and no more.

Karen’s caravan was behind the stable block, separated from the yard by a five bar wooden gate, one side of the caravan looked out on to the grey concrete blocks of the stables. The other across a small paddock to a wooded copse with a stream: it was a beautiful spot made more beautiful by the lady herself. The stream meandered down to a shallow ford, where the motoring correspondents of ATV Today often could be seen filming the test of the latest cars from Austin’s at Longbridge: taking them through their paces like Moses parting the waters of the little ford.

When her intimate trim was done Karen stepped out of the shower. Water was seeping onto the caravan floor. I knelt down and removed the auburn tangle that blocked the plughole and flushed it down the toilet. I joined her in the lounge of the caravan. Karen struck another pose and I started snapping tasteful pictures. They were all in line with Doug Webb’s sound advice. She loved the attention and soon she told me to put the camera down and we made love. She felt in my jacket pocket for my wallet and found the tiny packet with its precious latex cargo. Karen claimed that at school, in Cheshire, girls where each given a condom and a cucumber to practice. She was certainly adept at unrolling rubber. At Newport Modern School we were given a lecture about rabbits and a film designed for expectant couples, which showed a woman giving birth, the girls all went ‘uwww’, while some of the lads jeered, stamped and whistled. These boys were quickly ejected from the hall: by Mr Liddle, (Rural Studies) and Mr Abel, (Physics).

The next day was Thursday. Thursday night was Northern Soul Night at the Top of the World. Karen and I both loved Northern Soul, but Thursdays in Stafford sometimes held another treat, the Midnight showing of “Art House” Films at the Odeon. This week it was Fritz the Cat: an irreverent cartoon film noir about a cat growing up as a student in New York City. Karen wanted to go and we arranged to meet outside the Odeon at five to midnight. I didn’t go to the Camera Club that night: I wanted to shoot arty pictures (which could well have been oil paintings). Karen was outside the Odeon at five to midnight, but she was quiet. She was hiding her displeasure. Even so she agreed to meet up on Stafford station at five twenty five on Saturday, after her catalogue shoot in Manchester.

I was on Stafford station: platform one, at five-twenty five on Saturday. She was not on the train from Manchester. She was not on the next train either, or the one after that. I collected my Honda from the car park and I went home. I played Motown Chartbusters Volume 3 to cheer me up. I decided to catch up on my correspondence, I had about thirty pen friends at the time, all round the world and mostly female. There was one in particular; a girl around my own age from a fishing village near Newcastle, her name was Heather. Heather and I exchanged letters twice a week, sometimes I made her tapes of my records, and in this letter, I suggested we met.

On Sunday, after lunch, I got the Honda out of the shed and rode to Karen’s. Sam was in the yard with a hosepipe. He shook his head.

‘She’s not here,’ he told me.

-‘I see.’

‘She turned up last night with a man in a red sports car, collected her things and gave me a minutes notice,’ Sam revealed.

‘A man, in a red sports car?’ I asked.

‘She called him Chet, said she was going to be a professional model,’ Sam said.

I said nothing. I rode the Honda out of the Stable yard. I had the feeling that I had left something behind. My heart: still beating, was pumping blood somewhere in that yard. From what she’d told me about Chet I knew he was a naturist, one Sunday afternoon she had taken me, by train, to Whitchurch, where her stepfather had been waiting with a car. He drove us to a naturist club near Market Drayton. I wasn’t overly impressed: I certainly wasn’t aroused in any way, just a load of naked people. All shapes and sizes: some of them looked ridiculous. I wanted to laugh. I wondered if Karen’s real father knew and if he did, what he thought. I went home, put the bike in the shed and retired to my room. I took out the photos of Karen, now they were just photographs, Chet would make her famous – that was what she wanted.

Here's part2 of chapter 3...

At seventeen, I was too young to join the railways, I had done well in Physics at school and my ambition was to be a Signal and Telecomm Linesman with the London Midland Region of British Rail. I enrolled at Stafford College of Further Education to study Electronics in the evenings, while I was there I heard of vacancies at General Electric Company (GEC) at St Leonard’s Works, Stafford. I didn’t expect to be accepted with my chronic myopia, but I passed the ‘illiterate e’ test (you had to look at a multi-coloured grid through a microscope and say whether the ‘E’ was mirror image or upside down) and I identified all forty-six colours in a box of wool. I spent six weeks in the company’s training school and was given a job in rectification. This was the time of the Edward Heath Conservative government and the dispute with the miners who were on strike. There was a three-day working week: power cuts and the television closed down at ten-thirty. In despair Heath called a General Election. The project I was working on at GEC was a large suite of power station switchgear destined for South Africa. The Heath government didn’t object to dealing with President Botha and his apartheid regime in that country. Labour won the election and some men in suits arrived to ‘look at’ the South African job. I had the mistaken belief that my job would be safe under Labour: I had seen a poster at Stafford College with the slogan ‘Labour stands for all who work.’ The men tutted and went away, a few days later all work on the project stopped.

We swept the shop floor every day for two weeks, relieving boredom by going outside, where we often lit a fire in an oil drum on the playing field next to the railway line. Rumours were rife in the factory, and it seemed that the proverbial writing was on the wall. Then on Friday were we all called to the Canteen at lunchtime. There was a low pitched muttering in the canteen, the sound of many men talking low, under their breath. The shop steward stepped forward to address his members.

‘Now, Brothers,’ he began.

Someone threw a plastic cup at him.

‘Sold up the river,’ an unidentified voice shouted.

‘Sod South Africa – What about my wife an’ kids?’ Another voice called out.

The foreman was passing among the men, handing out brown envelopes. I opened my envelope and read the redundancy notice inside. A group of us went outside and lit the fire in the oil drum, Queensville Gang were mending a broken rail on the other side of the fence. They brought the two halves of the rail together and secured it with a clamp, then the eldest of the men phoned the signalman from the loudaphone on a nearby Signal and Telecomms cabinet.


The railwaymen came over to the fence.

‘Cheer up,’ one of them said, ‘It might never happen.’

‘It just did,’ I told him: I showed him the letter.

He read it, and handed it back: ‘Plenty of jobs going on here,’ he said, ‘Of course, you have to work outside, but there’s always rule one.’

‘Rule one?’ I asked.

‘Fog or rain,
or falling snow.
To the cabin,
we must go,’ he replied.

‘How do you apply?’ I asked him.

‘You have to see Margaret at Staff and Admin, at the top of the stairs on platform one on Stafford station there’s a door, go through it onto a balcony and hers is the second door along,’ he revealed.

So on Monday morning I rode my Honda to Stafford as usual, but instead of turning right for G E C: I turned left for the station. I found that Margaret did not start work until eight o’clock, so I sat in the Buffet for half an hour with a cup of B R Coffee. At eight, I presented myself to Margaret who gave me a green card and an orange high visibility vest, she explained the safe walking route to the S U Yard, and told me, that when I got there I should ask for Sid Wilkinson. When I arrived, Sid was in the yard looking at a tamper machine, which levels and packs stone under sleepers. He was with a shorter man, his brother-in-law: Jack Meddings.

Meddings seemed overjoyed at the prospect of a new recruit. But first I had to attend Crewe for a medical, various film shows and a day’s training, so it was Wednesday when I met Norton Bridge Gang. On Wednesday morning, I presented myself at Norton Bridge Station: a man was sitting in the former Ladies’ room on the disused platform. A Scot, he introduced himself as Billy Mann. Over on the new platform an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) arrived from Stone, and footsteps echoed across the bridge, a few moments later another Scotsman, dressed completely in black, arrived. Instantly the two began to argue.

‘Have you no lit the fire?’ Black Jock asked.

Another EMU, this time from Stafford, and more footsteps brought a mixed race lad of about my own age to the mess room, this was Ali, he had discovered that the brown rubber pads, placed between sleeper and rail were highly inflammable, and whenever he was cold, he collected a few of them into a pile and lit them. A few minutes later Fat Phil arrived, he carried a guard’s bag, quite large, Phil didn’t carry it without purpose, he opened the bag and took out his breakfast: a Pork Farm’s Pie. The pie was his first of many, that day and every day.

Being the new recruit, I was liable for a sort of initiation by the other members of the gang. During my first weeks at Norton Bridge, I had encountered quite a bit of the railway equivalent of “road-kill”, a cat that decided to climb an overhead gantry and landed in two halves, each cauterised by twenty-five kilovolts of ac electricity, completely clean, not a drop of blood. There was also a swan, which flew into the overhead wires; again the neck was cleanly severed by the live conductor. I remember Ray Jinks, the ganger, having to write a report, as all swans in England are property of the Queen! I was detailed with Black Jock to bury it. And although we disturbed some soil, only the head and neck were buried, Black Jock put the body in a sack and that night he took it home.

‘Say nothing,’ he told me.

Somehow, Ray Jinks, The Ganger, found out. We were sitting in the “cabin” on Monday morning, when the normally taciturn Ray suddenly spoke.

‘How was your Sunday dinner?’ He asked.

He was looking straight at Black Jock.

-‘What does it taste like: Duck? Goose?’

Jock looked straight at me: I placed a finger across my sealed lips.

‘Oh dinnae blame the lad,’ Billy Mann piped in, ‘He didnae tell on ye!’

Albert, the sub-ganger was trying his hardest to keep a straight face when Ray spoke again.

‘-At the discretion of The Royal Household, dead swans are sent for post-mortem, in a special bag, like this one which arrived from Crewe on Saturday morning, so for Sunday overtime: I dug the thing up!’

Black Jock looked morose, ‘We had to throw it awa’,’ he revealed, ‘It was already cooked by the overhead voltage! After four hours in the oven, you could sole yer boots wi’ the meat.’

As we fell about laughing, a visitor arrived, a man in a smart car coat and a suit, but obviously a railwayman, he was wearing an orange hi-visibility vest, I was about to be tested, a baptism of fire. The man said he “inspected fences,” and Ray Jinks said I was to walk with him, because he was an official of the railway’s insurers, and had to be accompanied on and about the track. Ali breathed a noticeable sigh of relief, he was the next least senior member of the gang, and he’d met this man before. As the rookie, I was blissfully unaware of what “inspecting fences,” actually entailed. We left the cabin and we crossed the down slow and up slow and walked across the six foot (the space between a double line of rails) and over to the platform.

‘We’re going up the Knotty today,’ The Man told me, ‘only as far as the Stone Road Bridge.’

That, in itself, seemed a pleasant enough way to pass a morning. We walked to the north end of the platform and crossed the Up fast by the modern signal box, erected in the nineteen-sixties. The man stopped and offered me a cigarette, I was only an occasional smoker, but he told me I would need it, and as we rounded the curve, I saw a blue haze suspended in the air above a grey, tarpaulin heap lying in the six foot between the up and down Knotty Lines. As we got nearer I became aware that the haze was humming, no it was buzzing, and when I was near enough to see, I could make out that this haze was, in fact, what seemed to be about a million bluebottles. It was my job to watch for trains as the man inspected the heap, keeping the cigarette in his mouth so he could blow smoke at the swarming flies. A cow had strayed onto the line the previous night and been hit by a train: these were her last remains. The man seemed quite unabashed as he picked through the remains, examining the mouth and birth canal. I heard a tractor behind me and turned to see the farmer jump down from his machine.

‘She was a good cow,’ he began, ‘Three years old, pregnant too: I was expecting twins from her this year.’

The insurance man looked around, ‘This cow’s no more three than I am, and as for being pregnant, there’s no sign of a calf, at her age, I would think she’d be barren,’ he said.

As we walked back to Norton Bridge, the insurance man told me that this was an old trick and farmers always made exaggerated claims about cows killed on the line, we examined the fence and found a wooden bar had been slid out of place, nothing that a couple of nails wouldn’t put right.

All new recruits are always taken out to see a cow, a large animal, it makes a mess, and I had to see it before I encountered a smaller and more stupid mammal: Man. Sadly, every year about eighty people choose British Rail to end it all, and it is the transport police, assisted by platelayers who have to clean it up. Whenever a body is found on the line, British Transport Police are called first, railwaymen delay calling the civvy police for a reason, the civilian police will not work on the line unless all trains are stopped, in railwaymen’s terms they “stop the job,” Transport Police Officers will work on the line with only a look-out man to guard them.

A few weeks later, there was an incident at Bagnall Wharf, a few miles north of Norton Bridge on the line to Crewe. A woman had opened the door of a moving train and stepped out, at about a hundred miles an hour, this was 1973 before electronic locks were fitted to carriage doors and the poor woman was cut to bits. The BTP sergeant arrived from Stafford and began to examine the remains, quite unabashed. He’d done this job before: Humans make far less mess than bovines. A Doctor arrived next, he counted the feet, Doctors who attend railway suicides always count the feet, in case there is more than one victim. In twelve years with British Rail, I attended three suicides: none had the impact of that cow.

3592 words.

FBSRO (c) Mike Brotherton 2009.

The Next Instalment is Chapter 5...

Having Relations. Chapter 5.
(Off the Rails Night).

On Tuesday morning following the bank holiday, at seven am, I was back at in the little cabin at Norton Bridge. As usual, Billy Mann was first there. The morning ritual of the gang arriving was observed. Ray Jinks arrived and lit the fire in the old stove and made some toast on the Bullfinch. A Bullfinch is a dangerous thing: it is actually a cast iron, propane fuelled stove. Like everything else on the railway it is far heavier than it needs to be. Ray told us our jobs for the day, but asked me to stay behind when the others went out to our yellow crew bus.

‘I need a grounds man for Saturday night,’ he said, ‘I want you to read this.’

He handed me a booklet about A5 in size with a pink cover.

‘I can’t pass you out, you haven’t been on long enough, so I’m going to pass Billy Mann, but I want you to keep an eye on him, so I’m putting you on supplies, but I want you to take the book and study it,’ Ray said.

All through lunch, in the bus, Billy Mann sat with the book on his lap.

‘What do you do if you run out of detonators? Black Jock asked.

Billy was silent.

Black Jock looked across at me, ‘Whit would ye do?’ He asked.

‘I’d put a track circuit clip on the track and display a red light.’ I supposed.

‘See,’ said Black Jock, ‘he’s only been here six weeks and he knows mare than ye already.’

‘Was I right?’ I asked.

Ray Jinks sighed, ‘Yes,’ he said.

Saturday night arrived, all my peer group would be out having fun, but at half past eleven, I was on route to Norton Bridge. We were remodelling, changing the layout of points between the down slow and the down fast. In the middle of the formation was a sand drag: about a hundred and fifty yards of track encased in open topped boxes filled with sand. The purpose of this was to slow runaway trains. The points at the end of the sand drag together with the south end of the cross over were disconnected from the signal box and under the control of Billy Mann. I was on supplies, at the north end of the crossing was an elderly platelayer called Lenny, a man of many years service. I had to make sure each man had a supply of detonators, batteries for their Bardic lamps and coal for their stoves. Lenny had a little hut that resembled a privy, but Billy had an eight by four plywood palace with a clock, stove, table and chair. The hut was a temporary block post, so Billy had to record the passage of trains in a train register. If I had been allocating jobs, I would have given this one to Lenny. There wasn’t much to do at first, so I sat on an oil drum in Billy’s hut, until about two am when the field telephone rang and I had to go to the signal box and collect some shots for Lenny. A train of soap powder was signalled from Stafford to go through the crossing for Stoke via the Knotty. I was in the signal box and heard the signalman give Billy clear instructions, he was to bar the points over with a pinch bar and secure them with a point clip. Simple enough. I collected some detonators and took them to Lenny.

The soap train with its electric Loco approached Billy’s Hut at caution and Billy showed ‘him’ a green light. The driver opened the speed controller. Suddenly the night sky was lit by giant Catherine wheels as the driver hit the brakes. The train ran up the sand drag, the electric pantograph ran out of overhead wire and the Loco wheels locked up. The first few wooden bodied vans smashed into the back cab like matchwood. There was silence and the scent of Persil in the air.

Lenny was a quiet man. ‘Well, that’s stopped the job,’ he observed.

Now there was another sound, the signalman had opened his window and was turning the air blue, ‘He’s clipped the wrong ***kin’ points!’

The Loco had sheared the bolts in the buffer stop pushing it about ten feet north, so that each bogie was on the track, but with a gap in the middle. The guard was nowhere to be seen. A fitted train has no guard’s van: so we knew the guard would be in the back cab of the loco. Lenny and I lifted away some of the wood, and found him, he claimed he had been knocked unconscious.

But when Jinksy asked us later, we both said, ‘Asleep.’

Ray Jinks wrote ‘knocked unconscious,’ and that was that. A Bescot guard, he preferred to go home rather than go to the Stafford Infirmary.

At around four am Jack Meddings arrived, he threw his cloth cap on the ballast and jumped on it. A class 25 arrived from Stafford and towed the undamaged wagons bang road (up the down line) back to Stafford. Leaving a Loco and three smashed vans on the sand drag. At six o’clock Sunday morning, I went home. I returned that night at ten. During the day, a gang from Crewe had cut two lengths of rail and slipped them under the stranded locomotive, a crane moved the wrecked vans and a Class 47 diesel hooked onto the back of the Loco. The Loco was examined and then towed back to Stafford. The wrecked vans were craned into open wagons and a class 25 took them away. We jacked up the sand drag points and levelled them with fine chippings: the Signal and Telecomms department arrived and fitted a new stretcher bar to the points. The points were connected back to the signal box and the job was put off for some date in the future.
Monday morning, I was in bed, at lunchtime Mam brought me two letters and a cup of coffee. One letter was from Heather, the other from Karen. I sat up, drank the coffee and read Heather’s letter, this was the letter that said: I will meet you at Newcastle. I got up, washed and dressed. I put Karen’s letter to one side, I knew the handwriting and the Crewe postmark. After tea I played some records and wrote to Heather. Finally I opened Karen’s letter.
“You weren’t at the camera club on Thursday, so I thought you’d lost interest, Chet was at the camera club, and he said he could get me a professional shoot, I’m going to London in the next few weeks. I really enjoyed our time together and I think a lot of you,” She wrote.
I threw the letter away. I didn’t think she would ever be a top-notch model and I hoped that Chet would find a way to make her happy. Heather was different somehow.
I started making more tapes and sending them to Heather, also we phoned each other every Sunday at six. I was making good money at Norton Bridge, but that was not to last. One morning Ray Jinks received a letter about me from Crewe, could I go for a medical. I was a bit puzzled, but I went anyway. I reported to the medical centre where a man in a white coat took my glasses off me, sat me in a chair and told me to read the chart. Now this is the thing, without my glasses, I couldn’t see the chart.
‘It’s by the lamp on the wall,’ he told me.
‘I can’t see the lamp,’ I said.
-‘Then the shadow of the lamp.’
-‘No, sorry.’
He gave me my glasses back and I read the top three lines.
‘Are those lenses glass?’ He asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I’ll get you a form, you can have a free pair off BR, shatterproof lenses,’ he told me.
Sure enough a letter arrived, with a voucher for an opticians in Crewe, but luckily the firm had a branch in Market Drayton, not far from my home. The optician was thorough, and he got me a pair of Ashai lenses, plastic and half the thickness of my normal ones. I chose frames with gold rims and when I collected them I felt like a different man. But it did not end there. One morning Ray Jinks received another letter. This time I had to sign a form, I was not to go on the track without my glasses, which was stupid, if I didn’t have my glasses, I wouldn’t be able to get to work. Then came the crunch: I was not allowed on the track alone. Jinksy put me with Billy Mann but someone at Crewe had it in for me: I thought they were overreacting.
A month or more passed, and one day Jack Meddings came to the cabin at the start of the day, ‘Are you still here?’ He asked, he turned to Ray Jinks, ‘there’s vacancies on the platform at Stafford, why hasn’t he put in for them?’
‘I’m happy where I am,’ I said.
‘You can’t stay,’ Jack told me, ‘they want a parcels sorter on Stafford Station, I suggest you put in for that.’
I wasn’t happy, so I went to the union, the old N U R as it was then. But the railway can teach the army a thing or two about bull-shine. At that time I could still read a car number plate at the prescribed distance (with my glasses) and I made a point of saying it. I was told to sit outside the meeting room while four railwaymen and four managers, chaired by the station manager deliberated. In my absence they decided that, if I would take the parcels job on a temporary basis I would be allowed to apply for vacancies as they arose on an internal vacancy list. The alternative was dismissal. That was an alternative I wasn’t prepared to consider. Parcels’ sorting on the railways is one of those jobs that doesn’t match its description. A train pulled into platform five, we opened the doors and it was full of Brutes: Blue painted, wheeled cages loaded with parcels. Some of the Brutes changed trains at Stafford and it was our job to take them off one train and put them on another, which would arrive later. I missed the camaraderie of the gang, I was working a three-shift system and I was not happy. I would see Lenny and Billy Mann, when I was on morning shift, they would come into Stafford on the EMU and walk the length back to Norton Bridge, performing a vital visual inspection of the track each day. It reminded me of how much I missed the gang.
I got home one evening and there was an A4 Manila envelope waiting for me. It contained a copy of a seventies men’s magazine called Rustler. I threw it on the side and ate my meal. Later on I took it upstairs and looked at the cover. Why would someone send me this, I wondered. I looked through the pages and then I realised, there was Karen: just as nature had made her. I didn’t like the pictures at all and I don’t know where the magazine went, I didn’t keep it, I didn’t intend studying gynaecology. She hadn’t made the cover or the centrefold and it certainly wasn’t the sort of modelling that Pamela Green had done. It definitely wasn’t like the stuff I had taken of her: she always complained that I was too arty. I found the pictures of Karen that I had taken: and destroyed all but six of them. Chet wasn’t going to make her famous, he was going to make her infamous.
I assumed (wrongly) that she was still with Chet, but she wasn’t, she was back at home with her mother and stepfather. Chet had arranged the photo-shoot in London, taken a percentage of the fee and dumped her. Surprisingly, many young women aspire to a career as a glamour model, but many agents want only one set. Few magazines seem to want a model’s second or third set. Karen was now on Valium, but I didn’t know it, there was something else I didn’t know. Meanwhile I scoured the vacancy list each week and found a vacancy for a Signalman at Allscott, between Wellington and Shrewsbury. There was no more Sunday work, not now I was ‘on the platform,’ so after lunch on Sunday, I got on the Honda and headed for Allscott.
(2114 words).

Having Relations. Chapter 6.
(Industrial Relations).

Richard had been one of my gang, the group of teenagers that had met in the workman’s hut. Six months younger than me, his life was beset by problems. He was out of town most of the time: he spent six months in the Navy, but was discharged for reasons that he would never say. After that he went to work for an adventure holiday company in Mid Wales. But suddenly he was back: his mother was ill, and he returned to town. Sadly, his mother died, but he continued to live in her council house. Then one Friday night when I was in my room, listening to records, he came to the front door, Mam sent him upstairs. He started the conversation with my surname, the way he always did, as if we were public schoolboys. The council had been to his mother’s house and put all the furniture, his furniture, in the garden. Would I go round and help him move everything back inside? It was summer and his mother’s garden was full of fruit laden trees, when we had returned the furniture to the house, Rich stripped the trees of their fruit. Would I run him to his girlfriend’s house, as he had promised her some fruit. I had a Honda 90 at the time and I took him to a house on a lane off Knightley Road, Gnosall. I waited at the gate while he went to the front door, I saw him knock and an upstairs window was opened.

‘She’s not here,’ said the middle aged, female face at the window.

‘I’ve brought some soft fruit,’ Richard told her.

‘Leave it there, on the step,’ the woman said.

‘What now?’ I asked.

‘Take me home,’ he said.

I moved to Allscott shortly after that, working seven till four, learning the frame, then I was sent to Manchester Victoria, where there was a signalling school on the third floor of that ornate Victorian building. Here I spent six weeks learning the rules and regulations of Railway signalling by the absolute block method. Absolute Block allows only one train in any section of line at any one time. The school was presided over by a dear old man who had been a Signalling Inspector – Mr Ladner. I travelled to Manchester daily using Stafford station, as the service was more frequent and the trains were faster.

Allscott signal box was a long, low building, built by the London and North Western Railway: with 72 levers. It was an LNWR design in the middle of a joint section, which had once been owned by the old Great Western and London North Western Railways. I didn’t see Richard for several weeks, and when I did he told me that he too had applied to the railways for work: as a relief booking office clerk. I wished him luck with his new employment. Then he told me that the council had moved him to a flat in Wellington and asked me if I would decorate his living room. I have always felt an affinity with Rich, so I agreed. One Saturday, I went to his flat and papered the walls with anaglypta. When the paper was dry I painted it with one coat of Sunshine yellow. I told him it would need another coat, but he never bought a second tin so it was never done. At eight o’clock he had to go out, he had an appointment: so I went home.

The time came for me to ‘take on’: take over my own shift at Allscott. I settled in and life was uneventful. Richard, meanwhile, was not finding life easy as a Booking Office Clerk. After a number of arguments with his colleagues, they decided to put in a ‘round robin’ – a deputation to the management, which they had all signed. Then, one evening he decided to come and visit me at the signal box. I made him some tea and he told his tale of woe. I was on afternoon shift that week so arranged to meet him at Albrighton Booking office on Wednesday morning. I arrived and was admitted to the inner office by Richard. He showed me the books: actually they were sheets, sent to the main station at Wellington each day on the last train. They weren’t that bad, but railway officialdom is like the army, and anyone who has done bookkeeping will tell you: it is an exact science. I counted up the cash to hand and made a tally of the tickets sold, easy enough as the tickets were issued by a machine. The float was five pounds forty six pence short, and Rich had altered the sheets in pencil with several alterations.

‘Have you given a passenger the wrong change?’ I asked. As that would account for the fiver.

But no, he was adamant.

Checking Richard’s copy in the book against the sheets, I could see that the forty-six pence had gone astray on the previous Tuesday.

‘What happened on Tuesday?’ I asked.

‘The light bulb blew and there was no toilet paper, so I went to the shop,’ he said.

‘And how did you pay for the light bulb and the paper?’ I asked.

-‘I took it out of the float.’

‘And you put the receipt in?’ I asked.

Richard said nothing.

‘Did you get a receipt?’ I asked.

Again there was silence.

‘Go back to the same shop, and buy a light bulb and some bog paper and get a receipt,’ I told him.

‘What about the booking office?’ He asked.

‘I’ll watch the office.’ I told him.

Alone in the office, I opened the grey painted desk that had once been polished mahogany, inside I found some jars containing shiny new copper coins, I counted them: there was exactly five pounds. Now: once I had the receipt, I could square the books up.

Richard returned.

‘I’ve found it,’ I said, thinking he’d be pleased, ‘the missing fiver, there’s exactly five pounds in these two jars.’

‘I know,’ he said, and placed the jars back in the desk and closed the lid.

‘Where did that five pounds come from?’ I asked.

‘Lloyd’s Bank, on Tuesday,’ he revealed.

‘Did you use your own money?’ I wondered.

‘No’, he spat, ‘of course not: I took a fiver out of the float.’

‘And you put the change in the drawer?’ I enquired.

‘Uhh?’ The look on his face was painful.

I discovered later that the bank giving him change, which was all new coins, caused the confusion. He decided to keep them separate. Hiding them in the desk so that when he sent the float to Wellington by the last train each evening, it appeared to be five pounds short. Now there was an urgent knocking at the booking office window: I opened it.

‘There’s no rush,’ I said, ‘the next train’s not for twenty minutes.’

‘I’m not a passenger, I’m Parsons from Wolverhampton.’ The man said gruffly. I knew his name, but this was the first time I’d seen him in person, he was the rest day relief Inspector: Richard’s boss. Richard opened the door and Parsons entered.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Parsons asked.

‘I’m the signalman from Allscott Beet Works.’ I told him.

‘No wonder the float’s short if he lets just anybody sell tickets,’ Parsons moaned.

‘But the float isn’t short, the five pounds is in the desk, and the odd pence is some petty cash he spent the other day,’ I explained.

Parsons opened the drawer and took out the jars with their coins. Richard stepped briskly across the booking office and took the jars off him.

I sighed.

Parsons seemed to change, he turned to me, ‘Is there exactly five pounds in those jars?’ He asked.

‘He took a fiver to the bank for change, the coins in those jars are all new ones, he wont put them in the float,’ I said.

Parsons half-grinned, he turned to Richard, ‘Is this true lad?’ He asked.

Richard clutched the jars to his chest.

‘Now then, son, that money belongs to British Rail, you don’t want me to have to call the police do you?’ Parsons asked.

Richard said ‘Ooh,’ and threw the coins across the room.

On my hands and knees, I managed to recover four pounds and ninety-eight pence. We never found the two pence.

Parsons spoke, ‘I shall have to relieve you of duty, lad,’ he said.

I sighed.

‘Look,’ Parsons began, ‘there’s a vacancy for a rest day shunter at Wellington, he can do that until he goes before the LDC.’

This Local Disciplinary Committee, smaller than the one which I had had dealings with at Stafford, was composed of three management and three staff members, the chair was either the Area Manager or the Union rep, they alternated on a rota basis.

‘He’s entitled to a representative, someone in the same grade, I’m sure you can sort that out between you,’ Parsons told us.

I looked at my watch, ‘You know where to find me, Rich, I’m at the Beet Works, afternoons this week, mornings next,’ I said.

Most of the phones at Allscott signal box were mahogany with Bakelite buttons housed in a brass bezel, which I took great joy in polishing. I had just started my shift when the omnibus phone rang out 4 pause 2, the code for Allscott, so I answered it. It was Rodney Wilkes, the signalman at Wellington.

‘Hear you were at Albrighton, this morning,’ he began, ‘sorted the books out, didn’t you.’

‘They tally now,’ I replied.

‘I heard old Parsons relieved him of duty, sent him to work in the yard here,’ Rodney continued.

I said nothing.

‘Well tell him, the shunters don’t want him,’ Rodney told me.

I sighed: Richard was an acquired taste.

About a fortnight later I was on morning shift and it was a beautiful warm day: I had the windows at each end of the box open. Outside the birds were singing. Because it was summer there was no smell wafting across the tracks from the sugar works. In the winter, during the ‘campaign’ the air would be acrid with the smell of boiling sugar beet. If you have ever boiled beetroot try to imagine this smell amplified a million times. Today the air was sweet with the scent of some distant heifers in oestrous: a good day to be a bull. A train was signalled from Wellington on the down line and as the two car DMU approached my outer home, the driver sounded his two-tone horn at a railwayman in his orange high-visibility vest. I noted that the little train had a tail lamp: indicating that it was complete and I put the signals back and sent 2 pause 1 - ‘train out of section’ to Wellington on the block bells.

A signal box, between trains, is the loneliest place on Earth: any company is welcome providing it is a railwayman. The Rulebook says that a signal box should be ‘kept private’. One regular (and most welcome) visitor to the box was Little Brian, who walked the length from Upton Magna, the next village. Brian was a Polish immigrant, and a platelayer of many years experience, his real name was Bronislaw Zarzichsczi, but Upton Magna Gang had dubbed him ‘Brian’. As a teenager, ‘Brian’ was captured by the Germans and taken to Germany during World War II. Where he was billeted to work on a farm. From what he told me the farmer’s family had treated him well and they called him ‘Bruno’. Brian sometimes brought a Polish Magazine with him, a magazine called Jadranka, it was full of pictures of Polish ladies usually wearing only stockings and a suspender belt.

“I like it strappings,’ he would say.

But the railwayman approaching from the Wellington direction was not Brian: Brian always walked in an Easterly direction, from Upton Magna to the district boundary at Admaston. The man presently approaching Allscott box from the East was Richard. The phone rang out 4 pause 2. I answered it: it was Rodney Wilkes at Wellington Box.

‘Has he arrived yet?’ Wilkes asked.

‘No,’ I replied, ‘he’s up by the shunters’ hut.’

‘Wellington Shunters sent him looking for sheep on the line, to get rid of him, he’s just rung me to tell me that the driver of the DMU passed my down IBS distant at yellow,’ Rodney told me. (Trains can pass a distant signal at yellow it means caution).

‘No one’s reported any sheep on the line,’ I said.

Wilkes laughed, ‘I know,’ he said and put the phone down.

A glance towards Walcot revealed Brian, walking the length, I put the kettle on. Brian had his own cup, kept in the spare locker: I found a spare one for Richard.
Meanwhile: The Sugar Works shunter, an ex-BR Class 04, still in BR Green Livery and carrying the number D2302 came into the sidings with some empty wagons to attach to the 13.20 Up from Coton Hill, the once large shunting yard on the north side of Shrewsbury. I made an entry in the train register. Brian got to the box first.

‘Dzien Dobery Brian,’ I said in my best Polish. I liked to practice my Polish: there was a pretty Polish girl who worked in a local café a few miles away.

‘Morning Pal,’ he replied, ‘you got it kettle on?’

At the Shrewsbury end of the box, there was a small round table and some storage boxes topped with cushions from first class carriages, Brian took a seat and took out his ‘bacca wallet’ ready to make a roll-up. He once returned from holiday with a packet of twenty Polish ‘Guitar’ Filter Cigarettes, black tobacco: one drag set the back of your throat on fire and cleared gallons of mucous from the lungs. Today he was rolling Golden Virginia. The 10.40 ‘hampton was signalled on the down and I attended to block bells and levers. I carried the teapot and cups to the little table. Brian took a folded magazine out of his jacket, the latest edition of Jadranka.
I watched the DMU pass and noted the tail lamp: replaced the levers in the frame, wrote the times in the register and joined Brian at the table. Jadranka had the usual collection of artily posed and comely Polish women, the models were quite legal, as this was after 1968 and John Trevelyan’s ruling that pubic hair was no longer indecent. But I still preferred Marks’ fifties glamour with its homegrown, shaven, air brushed models. Richard seemed to be lingering by the shunter’s hut, so I put the teapot on the round plate, which encircled the stove. Richard waited for Brian to leave the box, before he ventured nearer.

Richard accepted a cup of stewed tea, and told me that The NUR rep had insulted him but had agreed to represent him at the LDC meeting. I was relieved in a way and disappointed at the same time. The LDC eventually agreed to let him stay at Wellington as a regular turn shunter.
2526 words.

FBSRO (c)2009 Mike Brotherton.

Here is another instalment...

Having Relations. 7.
(Curry at Midnight).


I had worked ‘blockades’ at Norton Bridge, but overtime hours at Allscott were few and far between, so I was pleased to have a blockade for the installation of a motor point at the Wellington end of the up goods loop. A Bulldozer was brought to the end of Signal Box Lane and driven up the head shunt on a base of temporary sleepers. The machine was sheeted up and left behind the shunters hut. Allscott Box was fitted with a block switch, and was normally closed from 15.00 on Saturday until Monday morning. At 22.00 on Sunday night, I phoned the signalmen at Wellington and Abbey Foregate and opened the box sending 5 pause 5 pause 5 to each adjoining box. Davy Ball was to be grounds man and Gwyn Roberts: a Movements Inspector from Shrewsbury was to be Pilotman. When a Double line of track is worked as a single line, a man takes the place of the token normally carried by trains on single lines, the man wears a red arm band: all trains that night would travel over the Down Line. Only the train with the pilot on board could proceed.

At midnight a D P U (Diesel Parcels Unit) was signalled from Wellington, to travel in the correct direction to Abbey Foregate, and Gwyn Roberts filled in the single line forms; he left one form in each box and drove to Wellington to board the DPU. Now single line running was in force. Davy Ball brought sixty Rothman’s Cigarettes with him at the start of the shift. He placed a red light at the point where the line would be lifted, and placed three detonators on the rail. As an extra precaution I ‘pulled off’ the detonator machine lever: painted black with white upward pointing chevrons. As the DPU was travelling in its normal direction (over the down line) there was no need for Davy to clip any points. At five past midnight the DPU passed the box, Gwyn Roberts leaned out of the window. The Guard also leaned out of his window and dropped something. When the little train had passed, I went out and retrieved it, a fresh copy of The Sun, Monday’s edition fastened to some ballast with rubber bands. Monday’s paper at just after twelve midnight.

The machine was un-sheeted and Upton Magna P-Way gang dismantled the points, one set on the Up main and the other on the Up loop, the machine moved in and dug down, removing eight inches of old ballast. Meanwhile I received a phone call from Abbey Foregate. The Signalman there had an Engineer’s ballast train standing at his box on the now closed up line. I gave him permission for it to enter the blockade. The new points were already part assembled: lying on the ground by the shunter’s hut. I settled back in the chair with The Sun. These were the days of Samantha Fox’s topless career, she was very much in the vein of Pamela Green, and her ample sixteen-year-old bosoms (legal at the time) stared back at me from page three. Samantha was an attractive girl but too short and a bit too ample for my personal taste. Davy Ball returned from the scene of work and I made some tea, he offered me a Rothman’s: I accepted though they were stronger and harsher than my usual brand. He sat and read The Sun. Little Brian arrived and told me that there was a gang working on the Up line near Belvedere Bridge: taking advantage of the blockade so I warned him about the ballast train.

Davy Ball moaned about the Ballast train, he knew that the Class Twenty-five diesel would be outside the box for half the night with its engine ticking over and as the next signalled train would be 04.45 he had been hoping to get his head down.
The ballast train and its Class Twenty-five loco arrived and stopped short of Davy’s red light exploding the detonators in the machine.

Davy moaned. ‘Its started,’ he said, ‘should’ve known.’

The Guard (a Shrewsbury Man with a Welsh Marches accent) came up to the box, bringing with him his Guard’s bag. Guard’s bags can contain all manner of wonders, and this one contained a jar of Curry sauce and some already cooked chicken portions, this he cooked up on our single ring Belling stove while the class 25’s Sulzer engine ticked away out side, he put the curry to keep warm on the cast iron ring around the Romesse stove and boiled the rice. Curry and Rice at twelve-thirty on a Monday morning. He had brought enough for all four men in the box, but not for the driver. I asked why: he replied like this.

‘I’m the man they call the Guard,
I sit at the rear of the train.
The driver thinks
That I’m a c*nt,
And I think he’s the same.’

The driver had a small electric stove and hot plate on the diesel: no doubt he had made his own food arrangements. We had finished the curry when Gwyn Roberts paid us a flying visit, travelling by car and parking it under the floodlights at the Sugar Works Lab, so he could hardly sneak up on us unawares. There was an exchange with the Guard in Welsh, and the Guard disappeared to his van. He stayed in the van until Roberts had gone and then returned to the box where he gave us, in English, his opinion of his countryman. The P way gang had erected temporary lights worked by a generator and I could see them working. Little Brian stayed in the box to remind me that there were men working at Belvedere Bridge. At around two am a train was signalled from Wellington, explaining why Mr Roberts had made his way by road back up the line. It was five beats on the block bell: a fitted train. This was a train I never saw on normal shifts at Allscott: an oil train for the Hereford line. One of the few trains to turn left at Abbey Foregate and round the curve. The signalling regulations state that a signalman should operate all signals (where possible) during single line running: but I kept the outer distant at caution and did not pull the I B S lever until the train had passed the intermediate block distant. In this way I had warned the driver of the oil train about the men on the track at Belvedere. Now Mr Roberts was at Abbey Foregate and his car was at Wellington, so he was obviously going to take single line working ‘out’ with the first up passenger from Shrewsbury.

The class 25 continued to throb away through the night, and although we closed our eyes: none of us slept. The job was finished by four am, the train having dropped its ballast on the newly laid points: the box was a hive of activity with Bill Purcell, the Signal and telecomm’s lineman installing a new telephone on the block shelf and a new glass fronted cabinet housing a hand crank to work the new points in an emergency. The ‘25’ took its train to Wellington, causing much comment from Rodney Wilkes: nothing had been shunted on the platform line at Wellington after dark for years. The engine ran round its train and stood on the down middle road to await the pilot. The two-car Metro Cammell DMU came up the down line from Shrewsbury, making it the only train to travel in the wrong direction. Roberts leaned out of the window so we could see his armband. He returned ten minutes later on the engine of the down ballast, the train stopping at the box, while Mr Roberts took single line working ‘out’ by coming to the box: collecting the form and signing the train register. Everything was back to normal. One by one, the other railwaymen left the box and I was alone. I stayed ‘til seven o’clock, closing the box with the official 5-5-7-bell signal: pulling the IBS levers as each of my neighbours gave me ‘line clear’. Rodney Wilkes had gone home at six, and I had a brief chat with Frank Vickers, the morning turn man at Wellington on the phone. I walked back to my Honda: pausing to admire the new points. I met Manny Eccleston, the seasonal shunter and Lamp Man: starting his shift.

‘Writing’s on the wall,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ I replied.

‘Motor points, electric,’ he observed, ‘they can work them from Abbey Foregate’.

There was to be another blockade in two weeks’ time, this time to install points at Fison’s fertilizer depot. Fisons had had sidings during the war and they had received a grant to renew them. I thought prospects seemed good. Manny went into ‘his’ hut and I started my bike for the journey home. I rode along the cess (cinder path) next to the Head Shunt knowing there could be no trains: as the box was shut. At the top of Signal box Lane I saw Davy Ball leaning on the bonnet of his car, I paused.

‘Something wrong, Davy?’ I asked.

‘I was wondering,’ he began, ‘could you lend me three cigarettes to see me home’.

I took three Embassy Regal Blue from my packet and handed them to him: he lit one, got in his car and followed me down the unmettled lane. Where I turned right and he turned left for Shrewsbury. I made a mental calculation: he smoked ten and a half fags an hour. I rode home in the morning half-light and went to bed. At two o’clock Mum came upstairs and woke me. There was a man down stairs from the Department of Social Security. I got dressed. I went downstairs: there was an elderly, red-faced, jolly looking man, nearing retirement and dressed in an old brown suit, waiting to see me. He asked if I knew Karen, I replied that I did. He asked if I knew that she had had a baby. I said I didn’t, I asked for the date of birth and he told me. I did a quick calculation on my fingers He asked if I would have a blood test, I agreed.
He asked when I last saw Karen, and I told him. He advised me to have the blood test.
I asked for Karen’s home address and he told me, no problems: the whole thing was most amicable.

On Wednesday I got home at two to find two letters, one from Heather, one from Karen. Karen had sent me her parent’s phone number: I rang her and arranged to meet her on Sunday afternoon. Again everything was amicable and her mood was friendly. On Sunday, I rode through Market Drayton and Keele to a small flowery village on the Cheshire border. The house was a pre war ex-council house, a young woman opened the door, she had Karen’s red hair but she was taller, with traditional Grecian looks: a beauty from a Grecian urn in a museum. Karen was in the living room, she grinned as I entered. At the side of the sofa was a carrycot, where a strawberry-haired infant was sleeping. I peered into the cot. Karen came and stood behind me, putting a hand across my back, resting it on my shoulder.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

I didn’t know what to think, ‘I don’t know’, I said, ‘ it’s a bit of shock’.

‘Do you want to hold her?’ Karen asked.

‘Be a shame to wake her,’ I said, adding, ‘what I want to know is how, you insisted on Johnnies, you made a point of it’.

‘They can fail’, she said, laying her Titian head on my shoulder.

‘Well, I suppose so,’ I said, not pushing her away.

She turned: she was facing me now, looking straight into my face.

‘The social say you’ve agreed to a blood test’, she said.

I smiled and nodded.

‘I miss the caravan and the stables: I’m going to ask Sam for my old job back,’ she told me’.

The child stirred. ‘Nearly time for her bottle, or would you like to see me feed her?’ Karen asked, ‘or there’s a bottle in the fridge, you could feed her if you like’.

The child was quiet and peaceful as she lay in my lap and I gave her her bottle.

‘She’s quiet, she knows who you are,’ Karen said.

‘She likes her milk,’ I noted.

‘She should do,’ Karen told me, ‘its mine.’

The older sister brought us coffee, her name was Shirley, and she was getting married soon. I went to the wedding in the weeks we waited for the blood test results. I took my camera, Shirley was photogenic: she could have been a top model but didn’t want to. I rode back from Karen’s village with thoughts running through my head, should I propose? Should I look for a house? I wasn’t working in Stafford anymore. Allscott was a long way from Sam’s Stables: if she went back to work then who would look after the baby? Had a condom failed? The dates didn’t quite fit, perhaps she’d been a week out in her calculations: perhaps they did put a hole in every third one.

2231 words.
FBSRO (c) Mike Brotherton.

Having Relations.
Chapter 13.
(Mutated Genes and Altered Images).


My only son, Martin was born on December the fourth 1982, despite the stories circulating in the town where I live, that is when he was born: his birth certificate bears this out. It’s a fact. He was also three weeks premature. He was a large baby: nine pounds and a quarter of an ounce. I went with my wife to the birth. From the next room a woman was swearing at her partner (and the midwife). Our midwife was Sister Carr, wife of a well-loved and highly professional local radio D J. But Martin was delivered by a highly efficient pupil mid-wife called Wendy Bostock.
I regarded the newly born infant, I was amazed by the size of his head and made up my mind that he was going to be a brainy little soul, I imagined him going to Grammar School when he was older.

Martin developed normally and was, in fact, early to talk and walk. I had a son and a daughter now and I was a happy man. We moved to another house and we were happy. Then one evening, at bedtime, Martin developed Asthma, during the asthma attack: he had an epileptic fit. We rang the duty doctor.

‘Oh no,’ said the quack, ‘I’m not coming out, bring him to the surgery in the morning’.

We rang the ambulance, Martin was put on oxygen straight away and Heather went with him to Copthorne Hospital, Shrewsbury.

He came home two days later, he didn’t speak and after that he developed facial eczema. Four weeks later he had another asthma attack and another epileptic fit. This time the duty Doctor was an Indian gentleman called Anuri Barua, he came to the house, brought oxygen, gave Martin an injection. At one am, he returned and examined Martin again, this time he brought a nebuliser to help Martin Breathe. By three am Martin was settled and sleeping in his cot. A knock was heard at the front door, I went down to answer it and found Dr Barua standing there, we had to wake the lad and Dr Barua examined him again and decided he wanted to see him next day at the surgery.

An early appointment was made for my little son to see Dr Capps, a paediatrician at Wrekin Hospital. A month previously, Martin had been an eighteen month old with the development of a twenty-two month old: now he was acting like a newborn. Dr Capps took blood from Martin’s arm, and said we should claim benefits for him. We were now considering legal action against the first Doctor, the one who would not come out to see him.

A month later, a second appointment came through for Martin to see Dr Capps. We went to Wrekin Hospital, where Dr Capps told us that Martin had ‘Fragile X Syndrome’: he said it was an inherited condition carried on the X or female chromosome. He then took blood from my wife and made another appointment for a month’s time. Martin had 42 out of 100 damaged chromosomes: the highest quota recorded at that time. Shortly after that, letters started arriving from The Fragile X Society, Which I punched and kept in a file. A month passed and we were now receiving benefit for Martin’s special needs, Social Services sent us a letter (which we still have) saying that he needed one point eight adults twenty four hours a day to keep him safe has he had ‘no concept of danger’. This was to manifest itself later as he grew.

Another visit to Mr Capps who told us that Heather had 16 out of 100 damaged Chromosomes. I was never offered testing, when I asked why I was told:

“ …A man passes a Y chromosome to his son, you could only be a carrier if your son’s result was over 50 percent.”

Martin’s needs were complex, Many people have or carry Fragile X, but not all are as badly affected as Martin. One in ten people have it or carry it – so you are bound to know someone. Most people with it have mild problems: learning difficulties and behavioural problems. There is also a disputed connection with epilepsy, the Fragile X Society list it as a symptom and The British Epileptic Association dispute this. Fragile X is said to be the commonest cause of Learning difficulties.

I am sure in my heart of hearts that if Martin had been seen by Dr Barua that first time he took ill, he would have grown up to be a lad with slight learning difficulties, I still feel it was oxygen deprivation that caused the major part of his condition. Martin grew in physical size, but never managed more than a few words in his vocabulary: ‘Bab,’ for himself, ‘Po Pah’, for Postman Pat, ‘Buh’, for book and ‘Tea’, which was interchangeable for both a cup of tea and Thomas the Tank Engine. I never held a conversation with my only son. We learned to sign in a sign language called Makaton. I even learned to sign the words to Cliff Richard’s Wind me Up (the tin soldier song.) Martin’s own preference was for The Gingerbread Man, which I often told him accompanied by signs. Despite a mental age of twenty two months, he had his likes and dislikes, jokingly, I once read him Postman Plod from The Viz, he screamed all the way through it until I was forced to give up. Having someone in the house with such a low mental age is not without its hazards. Like the morning he was not in his bed. I went down stairs and the smell from the kitchen told me straight away where he was, I found him standing at the stove with all the gas taps turned on and holding a frying pan. That is only one of several incidents, one morning he was standing in the corner of the living room with the Television set in his arms. He had a tendency to run away but he only ever absconded from home once, through a window. Later when he was nineteen, he was placed in a care home fifteen miles away in Market Drayton from where he frequently escaped. I had fitted ‘turnkeys’ to the outer doors of my house. Round plates with a metal paddle that turned and was then removed leaving the door locked, these I fitted about an inch from the top of the front and back doors. I got them from a mail order ship’s chandler in Bristol; they are designed to keep cabin doors closed (on a ship) in a gale.

One thing that upset me about my son was people’s attitude to him. In the village where we moved to: he was known as the ‘missing link’. Like a lot of Fragile X Children, Martin had a habit of hand flapping and, particularly when he was happy, he would also scream the end of words he had heard. When we left the village and returned to the town, other children would follow us and mimic him. Another cause for concern was the Health Visitors, we asked our other child to be tested, she was twelve at the time and she refused, the Health Visitors (both male) advised her to go on and stay on the pill.

‘We should’, they said, ‘raise her as a carrier.’

I went to my daughter’s school and spoke to the Deputy Head, who felt that ‘any problems are mild’, and ‘there’s nothing we can’t deal with’. My daughter left that school with five GCSEs all above a C grade and moved to a sixth form college.
About this time, we started getting reports of my daughter wandering aimlessly around the area and we told her to leave the college. I found a school with a sixth form, but the Headmistress insisted on testing before accepting our girl. I took her to Birmingham University Hospital where bloods were taken but the first test failed. So we made a second trip and this time the result came back ‘clear’. Feeling smug, I wrote to the Fragile X Society, but their reply was not what I expected, they wanted her re-tested. Our Girl was nineteen by now and we gave her the choice. She chose not to bother and we stood by her decision and never mentioned it again. The Fragile X Society still writes to us: at least every two months.

I had never been really close with any of my cousins; now suddenly I found I was working with my cousin, Irene, on a family tree research project. My Father had had a number of old photographs that had belonged to my Grandmother and with the approach of VJ day he wanted copies of some pictures he had taken while in the Navy. He took them to his local branch of a chain chemist. They wanted nearly five pounds per copy.

‘Can you do them any cheaper?’ He asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied. I could.

-‘Can you do them good enough for the Shropshire Star?’

I could: and I did.

I had a copying frame: a board with two lamps and an arm with a screw adjuster to mount a camera on. I used it with both my thirty-five millimetre and a Polaroid camera. I invested in a roll of Ilford FP4 monochrome film and loaded it into my Zenith camera and mounted it on the copy frame. I shot a few test shots to try the technique and then placed a photo of my Grandmother, taken on her twenty-first birthday, on the board, I adjusted the Zenith’s aperture and fired the shutter. Then I copied one of My Great-Grandmother with her mother. I took two or three shots of each picture at different setting. I then copied some pictures of My Father in the Navy and some of his ship: When I had shot all 36 exposures I sent the film to Ilford’s laboratory. They developed the film but not the prints.

When I got the negatives, I selected the best ones and sent them back to Ilford, with instructions to print only the best ones. The family ones I framed in a large collage frame, which now hangs in my living room. The pictures of my Father’s navy days I gave to him, but kept the negatives. When he died, I had more copies made from the neg’s. I started to wonder about colour in the copy frame. I had a number of colour prints that had no negatives. In particular I had a photo of my daughter holding my son. It was a Polaroid picture only three and a half inches square. I placed it on the board of the copy frame and using Kodacolor Gold 200 speed film, took three pictures each at different settings. Later when the film was developed I printed a five-inch by five-inch picture, which I framed and that picture now hangs in my computer room.

After that the copy frame sat gathering dust, I should have got rid of it: sold it, given it away. But I didn’t. When I was about seventeen I had produced a photograph of my sister and I driving along Black Rock Sands in an Austin 1100. I produced that in my bedroom darkroom manually using three negatives and a two pence coin on a wire. By now I had assembled my own computer and I acquired a program called Photoimpact. It was too much for my enquiring mind. I familiarised myself with the program and ‘doctored’ some poor shots: correcting them and improving tone. I had a photo taken with a timer of the four of us together. On one my wife wasn’t smiling, in another the dog walked into the shot and my daughter tried to move him away: I used the two pictures to produce a composite image, then I merged the faces onto another family group shot that I had, the result was favourable so I printed it out from the computer. Then I placed the print in the copy frame and photographed it with Kodacolor Gold in an Olympus OM10. The eventual print I had blown up to eleven inches by ten. Professional photographers do this kind of thing every day. Even so I was still just a keen amateur.


(c) Copyright and FBSRO 2009.